'My entire world came crashing down': Man shares story of mother's cancer battle

Sunday

Oct 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 6, 2013 at 12:15 PM

Molly Phipps

Thirteen years ago, Jeff Ross’ mother was getting ready to retire. At 60 years old, “she was happy and healthy," he said.

Having raised four children as a single mother and burying one, she had already endured much.

“After experiencing a lot of heartache, beating some major obstacles in life, we thought pretty much her life was set,” he said.

Their family didn’t get together often. During the Christmas season in 1999, Jeff and his family finally got together for dinner.

“That was the first time in my family’s history that we had a Christmas dinner under one roof,” he said.

His mom’s birthday was Dec. 16. His was the 21st.

“So we celebrated our birthdays after Christmas,” he said. “I have a picture of us standing together that night celebrating our birthdays.”

That night, she asked him to take her to the doctor. She’d been having problems with her stomach. She was referred to another doctor to get an endoscopy.

“Dr. Joel Spragins, who worked with me, we were actually friends,” he said. “I was standing there reading a book, waiting on my mom to wake up. He comes around the corner of the hall and he comes in crying. When he got to us, I realized, he’s coming to my mom’s room.”

Dr. Spragins asked Ross to go into the room with him.

“He said, 'I don’t know how to tell you this, but you don’t just have stomach problems. But I’m so sorry. You have cancer',” Ross said. “So my mom looks at me and I look at her. We didn’t know what to do. It’s like my entire world came crashing down.”

Another doctor walked into the room and both proceeded to tell them that she had a rare gastric cancer.

“There were no treatments for it. No radiation therapy, no surgery, no oral therapies, no clinical trials to treat this cancer,” he said. “She said, 'So what are you telling me?' He says, 'It could be six months, but it could be a year. I would say six months to a year.' We were just so shocked.”

Ross remembers the tears running down her cheeks.

“She said, 'So you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do?' He said, 'I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing we can do'."

His mom decided she wanted to go home. Two days later, she was discharged.

“And I immediately went down to my department and told them I had to quit. I said, 'My mom’s got cancer. She’s done so much for us. I refuse to let her go to a nursing home and die. I will take care of her until she passes away',” he said.

He and his sister immediately made plans for each of the six months they thought she had left.

“My sister and I planned every month. We were going to make sure every month was special,” he said. “And, it’s sad to say, 29 days later, my mom died.”

This story is part one of a Star series on Relay for Life's impact in Cleveland County.